blooms like a bruise
by TheeMizKitty
Summary: He doesn't know when he started caring, he just knows that now he can't stop.


**blooms like a bruise**

**Rating: T**

**Pairing: Arthur/Eames**

Arthur hates him. He hates the way he dresses, the way he has to talk in that stupid accent, the way he always has stumble on his jawbone, the way he can shoot perfect headshots even when in a speeding car, the way he always flirts, the way he calls him names, the way he looks at him—

Arthur doesn't really hate people easily but this man, this _Eames? _Something about him, like a parasite, is causing sensations to crawl under his skin, in between the folds of his carefully pressed suit stretched out across his body. He doesn't like the feeling. He doesn't like _Eames. _

But Eames seems to like him, or he could just be mocking him. With all the pet names, with all the smirks and flirtatious little winks… It is only when Arthur sees Eames doing the same thing with the young female architect they had to hire that he knows it's all just one fucked up game to the Englishman.

The rage is like a disease, rare and potent and horrible for his system. It is the first thing he has felt for a long time. He thinks he could get used to it.

He thinks he could like it.

../..

Across the world they run into each other. It shouldn't happen. There is no logical way such coincidences could happen again and again and then again. Immediately Arthur knows it's Eames' fault, because how could it not be? He hasn't thought of Eames for months and suddenly he's everywhere. It can't continue.

"Is there a reason you're following me from country to country Mr. Eames?"

They are side by side in New York, waiting for a taxi on the littered streets. It is late and there is a bar nearby, the music rattling the concrete beneath them and blending with raucous laughter. Arthur wishes he could still laugh like that.

"Do you ever do anything but work pet?"

It is an unexpected question. A lot of things about Eames are unexpected and it feeds that hate Arthur feels. He doesn't bother to look over at the Englishman. "Why should I tell you anything?"

"Because you know you want to, darling."

Arthur's hands curl into fists. A taxi pulls up and he opens the door, gets in. Eames doesn't follow him. Arthur looks back, once, as they are turning away down the street and he sees that there is no one there, not at all, like he had just dreamed Eames up.

It starts to rain, of course.

../..

In his apartment there is the sound of the rain and the sound of heavy knocking at his door. It takes him a moment to discern the two but when he does, he wishes he hadn't. Through the peephole Eames is perfectly wet and grinning perfectly stupidly. Arthur tightens his grip on the Glock in his hand. It would be so easy to eliminate the nuisance.

"What the hell do you want _now _Mr. Eames?" he calls through the door because there is no fucking way he's going to let the cheeky bastard in.

"I just wanted to hear your lovely angry voice, dear," came the slightly muffled response, followed swiftly by a faint sneeze. Oh good, if he was lucky Eames would just catch pneumonia and die on his front step.

"You have a minute to vacate my premises before I open fire on you."

"Ah but darling I'm not even in your premises; I'm _outside _them."

"Fine then, I'll shoot you just for harassing me so much."

"Harassing you? Darling I just wanted to stop by and see my coworker—"

Arthur can't take it anymore and opens the door, levels the Glock at Eames' chest right over his heart. For his part Eames just looks amused.

"I hope you don't greet all your guest like this pet."

"Just annoying British ones."

"I hope I'm the only one of them. I think I am, Arthur darling."

Arthur just stares at him, hard. Feels the shimmer of rage and indignation beneath his skin, feels the breath leave his lungs in bursts like he is on a chase or he is in the middle of hails of bullets and fighting for his life. He lowers the gun but doesn't lower his guard, especially as Eames steps closer, too close, until Arthur can smell scotch and peppermint and sweat pressed into skin.

He leans in so close that Arthur has no choice but to step back if merely to maintain his dignity, allowing Eames, the asshole, just enough space to slip by him. Arthur can only smolder silently as Eames settles himself on the couch and pulls out a worn deck of cards.

His grin is like a shark, sharp and dangerous as he angles it at Arthur. "Care to play a round, darling?"

"Did I even invite you in?"

"It's raining and you were obviously very bored and/or working, which frankly you do too much of. I thought I'd stop by and change that. So…do you prefer poker or Go Fish?"

Arthur shuts the door with a quiet thud and a muted click. He thinks he should kick Eames out. He thinks he should at least shoot at Eames. Instead he finds himself sitting down next to the Englishman and deftly plucking the cards from crooked fingers.

"What do you think I prefer Mr. Eames?"

../..

It is not a habit and it is not a relationship, not at all. Arthur tolerates Eames all across the world because most of the time he finds he has to. They work a lot of jobs together, naturally, being the best point man and the best forger, and Arthur finds that Cobb is too enthralled with Mal to be much of a friend at times and so, Eames is his only option.

Eames is always his only option, it seems. Drunken nights in the sands of Mexico; nights spent huddled in some shack in Canada; nights spent playing cards and trading stories of jobs in Russia, Spain, France. There is nothing personal about it; Arthur makes sure there is nothing personal about it, even when Eames tries to make it that way.

And the thing is Arthur still hates him. He still hates the pet names, the way he dresses, the way he has to flirt, the way he looks at Arthur the way he doesn't think he knows about, the way he deals his cards an even the way he smiles sometimes.

Eames thinks that something more is going to happen; Arthur knows this and for awhile, it almost entertains him. He wonders why someone as good at reading people as Eames doesn't notice the way he really feels about him, the way he merely tolerates him because there is no one else and Eames is great at entertaining at times.

No matter how many times Arthur scoffs at him, pulls away from him, mocks him, belittles him and just flat-out insults him, Eames still calls him 'darling.'

Suddenly, Arthur doesn't think he likes this anymore.

../..

It is five months later and it's been two months since he's last seen Eames. Two months since the night in Los Angeles when Eames had opened the door to a taxi for him, ushered him inside and told him to 'have a nice life darling'. Two months since Eames had taken his hand, for just a moment, and ran his thumb over the knuckles. Two months since he had last smiled at Arthur and dared to call him 'love'.

Two months, and Arthur finds he hates Eames even more. Not for being Eames, not this time, but for doing this to him, for filling him with a restless energy that burns in his blood and eats at his muscles and keeps him up all night, tossing and turning and working just to not think about the man that he hates, that man that had always been there for so long—too long—now that everything seemed so dull without him.

Arthur still hates him, but he hates what is happening to him now, the gall of Eames to just leave like this after so long, even more.

And so, he does what he does best and uses his infinitely strong skills as a pointman to track down the illusive Brit.

../..

It takes him only five hours to discover that no one in Eames typical haunts had seen him for a while; it took only six hours that Cobol Engineering had had a lead on Eames and had used it.

It took Arthur only seven hours to discover that Eames was in extreme danger, and he blamed the sharp feeling in his chest as surprise.

Only Eames would let himself get captured in his own safe house in Mombasa; only Eames would let himself be dragged away, kidnapped, tortured, killed. The possibility of Eames being dead barely crossed Arthur's mind; he was too busy grabbing his Glock, tracking down the bastards location and planning all the ways he could kill the men that dared to touch Eames.

It took some calls, some flights and some trudging through snow before Arthur found him, bruised and beaten within an inch of his life in an old abandoned watchtower, the men surrounding him like a pack of hyenas, jeering and snapping their jowls. The first one went down silently; the others he spends his time on, the kneecaps, the hands, the cheekbones—all broken.

From the chair he's tied to Eames sits there, still and dazed and just watches him through swollen eyelids, watches the careful way he executes them, a bullet right through the skull, and the way he kicked their bodies aside. Even when Arthur reaches his side he maintains his silence, even as the binds are loosened and he slips soundlessly into Arthur's arms.

For his part Arthur finds, with Eames' beaten body pressed against him, he doesn't know what to say. He wants to yell at Eames for being such an idiot, for daring the try to leave him out of this. He wants to ask him why the hell he tried to leave him out of this in the first place, if that had been his intention and if not, why the hell he just left like that.

But everything dies in his mouth as he feels Eames tremble against him, as he feels the warmth of his blood and the heat of his bruises. All he can do is lift him up, with difficulty, and leave the room behind.

Everything else can wait, so long as Eames is still breathing against his neck like that.

../..

"I really hate you, you know," he tells him from the seat next to the hospital bed, from the cramped chair he has been in for countless hours now, just waiting for this moment. For him to just wake up.

Eames doesn't look at him and Arthur feels his jaw clench in anger, in frustration.

"I know, darling."

"You shouldn't have been caught."

"It would have happened eventually." Eames has his eyes trained on the window, barely visible from his position on the hospital bed. He still isn't looking at Arthur and Arthur can feel that familiar hate gnawing at his insides. Here he is, after saving the British man's ass, and the man doesn't even have the courtesy to thank him.

"If you weren't already in a hospital, I think I would have put you in one."

At this Eames finally reacts and Arthur can see the semblance of a smile stretch across those full lips, that bruised face. It could be a smile or a grimace; it is too hard to tell.

"I know Arthur," Eames says softly, almost reverently. "I know."

They don't speak until Eames' eyes close again, as the morphine takes effect. Arthur still doesn't leave his side but just sits there, staring, at the wall, the window, at Eames.

He blames exhaustion for making his hand move, trail over a calloused one that has miraculously not been broken like the other one, lying so still and looking so fragile on the hospital sheets. Deceptively fragile. This hand could kill him.

He laces their murderous hands together, feels callouses meet, line up and chafe and he waits for Eames to wake up again.

../..

One week later and Eames is tentatively released from the hospital. The only reasons the doctors let him go was because of his constant complaining and the rather threatening looks a certain point man had been throwing at them. Eames has a broken leg still so Arthur helps him into the car, gets in and closes the door.

For a moment they just stare at each other over the space of the car. Eames' lips are parted, like he wants to say something.

Arthur starts the engine.

../..

They go to Arthur's apartment, a place both of them know so well. It is a struggle to get Eames situated on the bed but once he's there and settled, Arthur finds himself sitting down beside him. He can still feel his hand in his.

"You shouldn't have done that," he says again, like he's been saying over and over again just to see what the reaction will be. So far he hasn't gotten any sort of reaction at all but a guarded smile.

"I had my reasons for it darling," Eames just tells him, like he's been saying and Arthur snarls at him, gets up and walks away before he does something regretful to the injured man. Like punch him. Or kiss him.

He pauses in the doorway.

"You meant to never see me again, didn't you Eames?"

The worst part is Eames doesn't deny it. The silence is profound. The things Arthur has felt around Eames, once so clear cut now are all blurred together and tangled until Arthur thinks he can just barely still feel the pulse of his hate for him there, attached to another emotion that feels vaguely like heartache, like despair, like pain that doesn't come from a knife wound.

He leaves Eames alone for the rest of the night, sleeping on the couch and dreaming of bruises and crooked smiles and calloused hands pressed all against him until he feels he can barely breathe.

../..

Arthur grows used to Eames in a way that he never would have imagined. He grows used to sharing the bathroom and making two meals and putting up with Eames insane channel flipping. He grows used to his accent, to the way he treads lightly throughout the apartment, the way he smiles crookedly only for Arthur.

He grows so used to Eames that he doesn't really notice him heal, doesn't really notice him there when he returns from jobs months later to find food in the fridge and Eames grinning at him from the sofa.

"I don't think I really hate you that much anymore," Arthur tells him one night as they are sharing take out, planning a new job together.

Eames arches a sly brow at him. "Does this mean I don't have to sleep on your couch anymore, petal?"

Arthur rolls his eyes, eats more curry and maybe later he will kiss Eames. Maybe later.


End file.
